Very early on, our firm decided not to get involved in the COVID-19 business interruption coverage wars. Our reasons were simple.
First, we knew that the insurance industry would treat these claims as a threat to their very existence (or at least would say that to judges in an effort to dodge coverage). Therefore, the…
I seriously don’t know why so many judges have seem to have such a difficult time applying insurance law. Don’t tell anyone, or coverage lawyers like me may have to reduce our hourly rates, but the whole body of insurance law really comes down to Four Simple Rules:
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If you were born and raised in New Jersey like me, you’ve heard your share of New Jersey jokes from interlopers who think the entire state looks like the Turnpike near Newark Airport. (“What exit?” How wonderfully clever.) My response to these jokes is two-fold. First, trust me on this, we don’t like you, either.…
I’ve been representing policyholders in insurance coverage litigation for 35 years, and I’m convinced that I’ll never understand the logic of insurance company claim departments. They settle cases that I think they might want to fight, and they fight cases tooth-and-nail that I think they really should settle. (Maybe it’s me.)
The carrier’s claim file…
I hesitated to write this blog post, which is intended to be nonpolitical. We’re currently in the middle of an exceedingly nasty election season, and any topic that even remotely touches on politics is likely to lead to online mayhem. But I was intrigued by the confirmation hearings I watched yesterday for President Trump’s Supreme…
We have a coverage case in the office that’s 15 years old, with no end in sight. The amazing thing is, it’s not even a particularly complicated case. I don’t want to go into too much detail or give the names of the parties, because the matter is still pending. But even if we eventually…
My maternal grandfather, Pasquale Cupito, was a legend. I have far too many stories to list here, but one of them involves a giant garbage can lid that he used as a cooking utensil. See, he could make a mean homemade pizza, but there was never enough to keep everyone satisfied. One day he concluded…
I promise not to discuss COVID-19 in detail in this post. The recent deluge of hot legal takes about the pandemic may be making a lot of people sicker than the virus itself. So, let’s talk about a different, earlier disaster.
Believe it or not, eight years after the winds of Hurricane Sandy struck New…
In the 2008 film Wall-E, Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland with nothing on it but the abandoned remnants of human society, and a forlorn, trash-compacting robot. The robot’s only living company is a pet cockroach named Hal, which I guess is Pixar’s nod to the popular notion that cockroaches will outlive us all. (Or…
Here’s a piece of useless trivia for you. You know that old saying that something “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”? The saying apparently originated back in 1861, when Count Johann Bernhard von Rechberg und Rothenlöwen (remember him?), an Austrian statesman, was presented with a document recognizing Italy as a nation-state, and first uttered…